Legal, political news, analysis. Breaking Wisconsin election-law news, with emphasis on voting rights. News on the Wysocki Family of Companies CAFO in central Wisconsin.

Aug 19, 2014

Wood County Health Dept Closes Multiple Beaches as Ecoli Breaks Out

Beaches closed in Wood
County suggest a problem
politicians will ignore

Update II: Update on Scott Krug's threat to file a libel suit; Krug backs off with a whimper.

To no one's surprise, Scott Krug's threat to pursue legal action has proven to be as credible as his claim to be working for the interests of clean water and the environment.

Krug is refusing to answer his office phone at his capitol offices, several writers contacting Krug, have said.

Krug is motivated by two things in his ill-considered libel suit threat: Stunning ignorance of libel law; and an appalling incapacity to say 'No' to Scott Walker and ALEC on Big Ag's liquid cow manure runoff gifted to the people of Wisconsin with all of its pathogens and toxins vectored into our waterways and aquifers.

With the support of the Gannett Co news and editorial editors at the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, the rightwing Krug is still trying to portray himself as a champion for clean water and the environment.

Krug faces a head-on challenge in the November general election from Dana Duncan, a disability rights attorney from Nekoosa, who has made Duncan's opposition to a massive proposed concentrated agricultural feeding operation (CAFO) a centerpiece of his campaign.

"The Wood County Health Department has announced the immediate closure of White Sands Beach, Red Sands Beach and Nepco Beach due to high counts Escherichia coli, commonly known as E.coli," reports Deb Cleworth of the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune. "Routine beach samples collected on Friday prompted the closure, according to a news release from the health department. The samples exceeded the maximum E.coli level considered safe — 235 colonies per 100 milliliters of water. The tested counts registered at 6,400 to 6,500 cfu/100 ml."

No one can say they have not been warned.

Citizens' groups such as Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors and citizens such as Gordon Stevenson, Chief of Runoff Management for the Wisconsin DNR from 2001-2011, among many other folks have been sounding the alarm for years.

I asked Stevenson over breakfast earlier this month how he would go about quantifying and verifying that the "carrying capacity" of cow manure runoff of two Wisconsin regions has been exceeded in the Central Sand Plains (central Wisconsin) and the Green Bay and Fox River Valley watersheds.

Stevenson told me to "look at the water," and proceeded to explain how lakes, streams and ponds can be measured for pathogens, including Ecoli, and we will eventually see "Dead Zones" of lakes become Dead Lakes because of oxygen deprivation and toxic pathogen saturation.

We see this Do-Not-Swim, Beaches-Closed condition all over Wisconsin now (Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Meanwhile, policymakers in the Wisconsin Legislature and Scott Walker front for the polluters, toe the GOParty line and destroy community control of Wisconsin municipalities like the Town of Saratoga and the City of Nekoosa in Wood County.

As Erin Brockovich said recently, "Public Health must and always should be a priority," pointing out that Phosphorus runoff directed into lakes is horrible public policy.

The poisoning of our waterways of course does not happen without political protection of the polluters for whom public health is a nuisance to the special interests for whom politicians work.

In the Wood and northern Adams counties where the beaches are now closed, State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Wisconsin Rapids and ALEC) still plays his cynical, corrupt game providing political cover for the polluters and assisting Scott Walker, Walker's DNR and the Dairy Business Association in their project in which one objective is to contaminate and literally toxify Wisconsin lakes and other waters—which means your families' health is the cost of doing business.Scott Krug says he will sue me for libel for pointing out the above, absent a retraction. [No retraction is coming for this child badly in need of adult supervision.]Krug claims his independence and says he has "dealt DBA (the Dairy Business Association) and WMC (Wisconsin Manufactures and Commerce) a big loss," in an email to Wisconsin citizen, Donald Ysted, copied below, taking credit for killing SB 302, which would have changed the law regarding the DNR procedure for granting high-capacity well permits but had strong opposition in the State Senate.Krug is lying, and would not cross his patrons, WMC, who "recently [in 2012] honored Representative Scott Krug with the prestigious Working for Wisconsin Award at Heartland Farms Inc. in Hancock." (WMC, October 2012) Heartland Farms is a potato growing operation, big contributors to Scott Walker, and an avid opponent of local control."A Legislative Fiscal Bureau report in June identified 64 measures the (Republican) legislature and the governor have approved since 2011 that force communities to pay for state mandates or seize their authority to make decisions about public health, environmental, land use, transportation and other matters," notes Michael Buelow in the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign site (August 6, 2014). Krug followed the Party line on the votes listed by Buelow.In 2009, Roger Bybee sounded the alarm about concentrated agricultural feeding operations (CAFOs): "John Peck (of Family Farm Defenders), only half-joking, suggests Wisconsin's longtime slogan, '"America's Dairyland,' may need to be updated. The new slogan: 'The Land
of 10,000 Animal-Waste Lagoons.'" (Isthmus)Five years later, we have to say we should have listened.Meanwhile, citizen activism continues.Donald Ystad, the candid citizen from Nekoosa, Wisconsin, forwarded the following email exchange as Scott Krug works for the polluters while Krug pretends to be fighting them. [Email addresses omitted.]From: Scott Krug Date: Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 10:08 AMSubject: Re: FW: Citizen Ystad Hits Sacred Cow, the Dairy Business Association, as Wisconsin Lakes PerishTo: Donald Ystad Cc: , Nancy Koch, Criste Greening, Rhonda
Don

"The elephant" is obvious. DBA (Dairy Business Association) will try to do many things you may not like for many years to come.

If the goal of this group is to push away someone who has already dealt DBA and WMC a big loss you are succeeding. You know my record and you know where I stand.

I wish I could understand why some believe a minority party rep can solve all the area problems. It just doesn't make sense.

Criticism is part of the process, I'm more than happy to take my lumps when deserved, helps me learn from mistakes and become a better legislator. I won't stand for outright lies simply because there is some truth surrounding them.

Scott

On Aug 18, 2014 8:36 AM, "Donald Ystad" wrote:

Scott,

I wondered what your reaction would be when I forwarded his (Mal Contends) blog post to you. Your response regarding this issue is what I question about you as my Assemblyman, Scott. No mention of the fact that he's right about the DBA trying to take away a community's right to regulate pollution of their waterways. Instead, you totally ignore that and focus on his supercilious comment about you and Walker. I've seen that before when I've e-mailed you requesting support to bring in other agencies to help preserve our recreational/tourism area here. You totally ignore the elephant in the room and focus on some trivial comment. While no one really believes you are scheming with Scott Walker to pollute our lakes, many believe the Walker administration and those connected with him side with ag way too often where our environment is concerned. And that's why our lakes and groundwater are suffering. You've seen the recent blue/green algae warning for Nepco Lake. Your award from the League of Conservation Voters makes you the "best of the worst", so to speak. With a lifetime conservation voting record of 38%, you have the best Republican record, but it's far from a good conservation voting record. And, as a voter concerned for my recreational area, that is what concerns me. (emphasis added)

So, your sharing the threat of the party going after Mike Leon for his post does nothing for me. I continue to be torn regarding whether I'm better off with a questionable representative of the party in power, or a strongly supportive representative of the currently weaker party. Time will tell.

Don Ystad

On Sun, Aug 17, 2014 at 8:56 PM, Scott Krug wrote:

We've informed Mr. Leon of the libelous nature of his forwarded blog post and we will be persuing legal action.

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Bernie Sanders in 2020

Wrongfully Convicted: Penny Brummer

Federal Voting Rights Court Cases

- Gill v. Whitford, (District Court (Case 3:15-cv-00421)) (2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155022 (W.D. Wis., Nov. 17, 2015)), is a federal case challenging the constitutionality of Wisconsin's Republican-drawn legislative-redistricting scheme- One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen(U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324)) - Frank v. Walker- Since 2011 Wisconsin Republicans have made some 34 changes to Wisconsin election law to keep Republicans in political power (Katelyn Ferral, The Capital Times)

Scariest 14 Words in Politics

I'm from the Republican Party and I'm here to save Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security and Medicare Targeted by Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping Colleagues

"I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and 'shareholder value' the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one. If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be 'forced' to make 'hard choices' - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked."

Trump's dog whistles to racists including white municipal police continue. From August 2016 in West Bend, Wisconsin, as reported by Yamiche Alcindor in the New York Times:

Jack Beck, 65, a retired bricklayer who lives in West Bend, said he planned to vote for Mr. Trump.

"Every night in Milwaukee, there is someone being shot, and they make nothing of that until a cop is involved, and then all of a sudden it’s always blamed on the cop," said Mr. Beck, who added that he hoped West Bend’s black population would not increase. He tied much of the unrest in Milwaukee to his belief that black residents do not want to work hard and instead want to use police killings to get handouts from the government.
---
"You do not preach and encourage hatred for the Negro and hope to restrict it to that field. It is an old, old story. It is one repeated over and over again in history. When the wolves of hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe."— Ralph McGillAtlanta Constitution, Oct. 13, 1958A Church, A School

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Spotting Political Prosecutions

Alex Kozinski on liberty

"The right to do what the law does not prohibit, without fear of harassment or punishment, is one of the hallmarks of a free society." — Judge Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Foreword in Sidney Powell's Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (Brown Books Publishing Group, 2014))

Wisconsin Misconduct in Public Office

SCR 946.12(3). Misconduct in public office. Any public officer or public employee who does any of the following is guilty of a Class I felony. See link above.

Class-action, civil rights suit against Milwaukee

"For almost a decade, the Milwaukee Police Department has pursued an aggressive and unconstitutional policing strategy promoting large numbers of stops and frisks citywide. Between 2007 and 2015, the department almost tripled their traffic and pedestrian stops, from around 66,000 to around 196,000, following the launch of the program in 2008."

Milwaukee residents have long protested that police officers are conducting stops and frisks of innocent people, and particularly treating people of color as suspects for no good reason, stopping innocent men, women, and children as they try to go about their daily lives. The department conducts far more stops and frisks in the parts of Milwaukee that are predominantly Black or Latino than in other areas."- From the ACLU

Political-legal news

Sea of individual rights

"When conservatives like [Robert] Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights."- Stephen Macedo. The New Right v. the Constitution (Washington: Cato Institute, 1987)

On being police

Scott Walker—Frontman for Rightwingers

"The simplest way I can tell you is we had total and complete unity between the state party, quite frankly, Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party groups, the Grandsons of Liberty. The [Glenn Beck-instigated] 9/12ers were involved. It was a total and complete agreement that nobody cared who got the credit, that everyone was going to run down the tracks together..." ...

The Strike — The Improbable Story of an Iconic 1886 Painting of Labor Protest

James M. Dennis, professor emeritus of art history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

President Theodore Roosevelt on Veterans

Republicans are after veterans' benefits: "A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled, and less than that no man shall have." - President Theodore Roosevelt. Speech to veterans, Springfield, IL, July 4, 1903

On the Fourth Amendment, back in 1972

"The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation."
- Justice Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., writing for unanimous court in: United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)

Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

National Weather Sites

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Bertrand Russell

"Those whose lives are fruitful to themselves, to their friends, or to the world are inspired by hope and sustained by joy: they see in imagination the things that might be and the way in which they are to be brought into existence. In their private relations they are not pre-occupied with anxiety lest they should lose such affection and respect as they receive: they are engaged in giving affection and respect freely, and the reward comes of itself without their seeking. In their work they are not haunted by jealousy of competitors, but concerned with the actual matter that has to be done. In politics, they do not spend time and passion defending unjust privileges of their class or nation, but they aim at making the world as a whole happier, less cruel, less full of conflict between rival creeds, and more full of human beings whose growth has not been dwarfed and stunted by oppression."

U.S. Supreme Court Decision - Michigan Dept of State Police v. Sitz

Michael Leon

Michael Leon is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. His reporting has been recognized by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Leon's writing has appeared nationally in The Progressive, The Advocate, In These Times, CounterPunch and The Champion—the journal of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and locally in the Isthmus, the Capital Times and the Fitchburg Star. Leon works as a writer, editor, veterans' advocate, and public relations consultant.